


The right room

by Misila



Category: Free!
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 14:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16955466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misila/pseuds/Misila
Summary: Haruka and Rin find themselves in a hotel suite with only one bed; this time, however, it's not a mistake.But they need it to be.





	The right room

**Author's Note:**

> The rinharu track murdered me and the conversation on the server gave me an idea... And it's a non-angsty one!

 

 

 

 

All things considered, it’s a miracle Rin manages to keep quiet until it’s just the two of them in the lift; his left eyebrow started rising on ground floor, and by the time the last of their teammates walks out his ears seem only a couple of degrees away from expelling steam.

“Are you sure you know where the room is?” he blurts out, waving at the closed door even though by now Ikuya is probably dragging his suitcase along the hallway two floors beneath.

“Of course. I booked it.”

Rin narrows his eyes. “The website was in English, which you suck at,” he points out. He tilts his head, trying to see which number is illuminated behind Haruka’s arm.

“I don’t suck at English,” Haruka mutters. At worst, he’s mediocre at it.

The lift halts on the twelfth floor, and for all his annoyance Rin waits for Haruka to walk out first, trails a couple of steps behind him. Though they have spent the last hours stuck in a plane suspended somewhere in the sky, it’s nearly midnight here; Haruka likes the quietude of the empty corridors as they head for their room, which happens to be the one furthest from the lift.

Haruka steps aside to let Rin in first, follows him along the short hallway to the bedroom itself. Rin drops himself on the mattress, limbs spread like a starfish as he raises his head to take a peek at the nightstands and the TV standing on top of a cupboard at the feet of the bed.

“Jeez, Haru.” But when Rin jumps back to his feet, his expression is gentle. “What happened to squeezing up in a single bed?”

“It’s a pain,” Haruka replies, following Rin to explore the bathroom— which might or might not have been the actual reason he chose this room, in spite of the price. “Too uncomfortable.”

“And I bet not many rooms have a huge bathtub,” Rin guesses, smirking at Haruka’s noncommittal shrug. Soon, though, his expression grows serious. “Do you think the others will say something?”

Haruka blinks, not as puzzled as he’d like. He hates the bitterness that always comes with Rin’s worry about what other people might think, and he hates how he has grown conscious about it over the years— not because he cares, but because he knows Rin does.

“So what if they do?” Haruka may not be sleepy yet, but he’s tired of having to follow rules he doesn’t even understand. “Hotels make mistakes. Like when you took me to Sydney.”

“Actually, that—…” But Rin trails off, shaking his head. “You know what, we’re not having this conversation now. You have the key?”

Rin grabs Haruka’s hand as soon as he raises it to show him the key and drags him out of the room, barely giving Haruka enough time to close the door behind him. Only when they’re back in the lift does Haruka speak again.

“Where are we going?”

“To make a scene.” Rin’s fingers intertwine with Haruka’s as the lift goes down. “To make it clear they messed up.”

“But they didn’t, that’s the room I booked.”

“Yes, but that way we’ll make them think we’re not happy to sleep together. Just don’t overdo it, we don’t actually want to end up in separate beds, right?”

Haruka nods, not too convinced by Rin’s plan.

All he wanted was a bath with his boyfriend.

 

 

 

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” the receptionist apologises in loud English, eyes so bright for a second Haruka is scared she will start crying for a mistake that doesn’t even exist. “I would swear you booked the suite… And the server is down for maintenance, so I can’t check it…”

“Uh, it’s okay,” Rin replies, even though it’s Haruka the one who should speak. The receptionist hits the computer screen, frustrated.

“It’s just a small mistake,” Haruka adds, uncertainty raising the pitch of his voice.

“No, it’s not just one…” The woman bites on her lower lip, squints at the screen, then turns her head to look at the keychains hanging from the wall behind her. “But I think I can do something…”

“Seriously, it’s alright,” Rin cuts her off.

Haruka doesn’t understand what the receptionist says next, her words a chain of sounds too quick to make sense of them. She huffs several times, viciously stabbing the keyboard.

Rin, on the other hand, lets out a small gasp.

“What did she say?”

Rin scratches the back of his head. “Well… She says that there are no more rooms with twin beds available, but she can send one of us to a single one.”

Haruka narrows his eyes, barely managing to bite his tongue to keep a resentful _why couldn’t you just stay in the room_ itching in the back of his throat.

But his anger is quickly replaced by an idea. It’s stupid, but so was Rin’s; and if they have to act, they may as well improvise.

“Then you go to the single room,” he snaps in English, successfully attracting the receptionist’s attention.

For the briefest second Rin just stares, too taken aback to speak. Haruka shoots a quick glance at their witness, then up to the ceiling; he bites the inside of his cheeks, hoping Rin gets—

“Huh? Why me?” But as Rin brings a hand to his chest –a gesture, Haruka is sure, he picked up from some soap opera–, the glow in his eyes is amused. “It’s you who messed up the reservation!”

“And you’re the one making a scene over it.”

“I—… Don’t make it look like it’s my fault!”

“Why not? If you don’t like the suite, go to the other room.”

“You’re so—” Rin runs a hand through his hair— “Fine!” He turns to look at the astonished receptionist, whose gaze has been hopping between him and Haruka. “You have a pool here, don’t you?”

“A-ah, yes, but…”

“One-hundred metres, freestyle.” Rin glances back at Haruka, ignoring the woman’s awkward follow-up. “The winner gets the suite.”

“Fine for me.”

It’s only when the receptionist speaks up and Haruka has to make an effort to understand her that he realises Rin challenged him in Japanese.

“The pool is closed at night, it opens at half-past seven,” she informs them, “but if you can’t decide who will go to the single bedroom…”

“We’ll find something else to compete over,” Rin replies, sliding an arm around Haruka’s shoulder. “We’ll inform you when we settle this… Sorry for causing you trouble.”

 

 

 

When they walk in the room a second time, it’s the two of them dropping side to side on the double bed at the same time; they don’t even bother to switch the lights on, the city glow filtering through the glass doors that lead to the balcony.

“Your plan was stupid,” Haruka informs Rin, not taking his gaze off the ceiling.

“It wasn’t. I was hoping the receptionist had no soul, but she’s too nice.”

“Still.”

“But it worked! And I have to admit your English has improved a lot.”

Haruka doesn’t reply.

He closes his eyes, feels the shifts on the mattress where Rin moves; a smile quirks up his lips at the kiss landing on his cheek.

“What if she asks us about the race?”

“We tell her it was a tie to preserve your honour.”

Haruka opens his eyes expressly to glare at Rin, but it’s hard to be annoyed at him when he’s close enough to steal a kiss. Which is what Haruka does, tangling his fingers through red hair so that Rin doesn’t draw back.

“You mean _your_ honour, right?” he whispers against Rin’s lips.

“We’ll see tomorrow.” Rin’s hand trails down Haruka’s side, halts at his hipbone. “Why don’t we take a bath? You’ve been looking forward to it since we arrived.”

Haruka kisses Rin again, fully aware they will be sleepier than their teammates tomorrow if they take this path.

But the obscenely big bathtub is the second main reason he booked this room, after all.

“We need to be naked for that.”

And Rin fiddles with the button of his jeans, and as his laughter reverberates in the dark room Haruka knows it’s the best choice he could have made.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Not pictured: the receptionist texting a friend about this weird gay couple that for some reason were trying to convince her they didn't want to be in the same room.]


End file.
